Articles

Grants give farms kick-start to expand with value-added products

USDA has awarded $40.2 million in value-added producer grants to 298 recipients in 44 states and Puerto Rico for 2012.According to USDA, the grant program is a tool for independent fruit and vegetable producers, among others in the farming industry, ... more

National leafy greens agreement still stuck in D.C.

As of press time, the National Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement (NLGMA) was still in limbo.The last official word was in April 2011, when USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) announced it was seeking public comments on the creation of a volunt... more

Breeding strawberries

I heard three strawberry breeders speak in East Lansing, Mich., this spring during a meeting of the RosBREED Project. RosBREED seeks to improve marker-assisted breeding efforts in the Rosaceae plant family (which includes strawberries).One of the tre... more

Take steps to improve future asparagus productivity

2012 was an exceptionally difficult year for asparagus growers in the Midwest and Northeast, as well as in some parts of Canada.Because of unusually warm weather in the spring, bud dormancy on the crowns was lifted in early March, causing spears to e... more

Virginia farm relies on ‘huge’ CSA program

If you're going to run a CSA, it helps to do it in the richest county in the country.The Community Supported Agriculture program is the "bread and butter" of Great Country Farms, said Jaclyn Jenkins, one of the farm managers.Great Country charges CSA... more

Treasure Valley onion growers converting to drip irrigation

Onion growers typically use three types of irrigation systems: furrow, sprinkler and drip.Conversion to drip irrigation systems has been increasing for more than two decades in the Treasure Valley area, ranging from Oregon's Malheur County to the oni... more

ERS report confirms what we already know

Much of labor-intensive agriculture ended 2011 scrambling to find enough human hands to complete the harvest. As this article was being written in May, we were reading numerous accounts of actual or expected farm labor shortages in both the trade and... more